“Stephen Greenblatt’s The Swerve racked up prizes – and completely misled you about the Middle Ages.” Vox.com, 20 July 2016.

I am delighted to get a broader audience for this important argument.

]]>https://laurasaetveitmiles.wordpress.com/2017/01/04/article-on-vox-com/feed/0laurasaetveitmilesNorwegian blog article!https://laurasaetveitmiles.wordpress.com/2017/01/04/norwegian-blog-article/
https://laurasaetveitmiles.wordpress.com/2017/01/04/norwegian-blog-article/#respondWed, 04 Jan 2017 12:58:27 +0000http://laurasaetveitmiles.wordpress.com/?p=982In December I published a blog article in Norwegian, titled “Hvorfor ‘kvinnelige forfattere’? (Why ‘women writers’?) on the national Norwegian research site forskning.no. I wrote it originally in Norwegian, so I don’t have an English translation to hand, but google translate will probably handle my basic language pretty well
]]>https://laurasaetveitmiles.wordpress.com/2017/01/04/norwegian-blog-article/feed/0laurasaetveitmilesConference on Women’s Literature Culture and the Medieval Canon: 22-24 June 2017, Bergen, Norwayhttps://laurasaetveitmiles.wordpress.com/2016/06/07/conference-on-womens-literature-culture-and-the-medieval-canon-22-24-june-2017-bergen-norway/
https://laurasaetveitmiles.wordpress.com/2016/06/07/conference-on-womens-literature-culture-and-the-medieval-canon-22-24-june-2017-bergen-norway/#respondTue, 07 Jun 2016 11:32:37 +0000http://laurasaetveitmiles.wordpress.com/?p=939For the last two years I have been a part of an international network of researchers on ‘Women’s Literary Culture and the Medieval Canon‘, led by Diane Watt and funded by the Leverhulme Trust. Last summer we had a first workshop with just the 8 network partners at Chawton House in England, this summer we have our second workshop in Boston in July, and next summer we will organize a larger conference here at the University of Bergen. I am excited to host.

Here is the official Call for Papers. Bergen, Norway, is an amazing place to visit, and this conference will be a very worthwhile intellectual experience. Consider submitting an abstract!

View of Bergen from Mt. Ulriken, June 2016, 10:00pm

]]>https://laurasaetveitmiles.wordpress.com/2016/06/07/conference-on-womens-literature-culture-and-the-medieval-canon-22-24-june-2017-bergen-norway/feed/0laurasaetveitmilesview of Bergen from Mt. Ulriken, June 2016, 10:00pmGreenblatt and the Holberg Prizehttps://laurasaetveitmiles.wordpress.com/2016/06/07/greenblatt-and-the-holberg-prize/
https://laurasaetveitmiles.wordpress.com/2016/06/07/greenblatt-and-the-holberg-prize/#respondTue, 07 Jun 2016 11:05:23 +0000http://laurasaetveitmiles.wordpress.com/?p=937Today Stephen Greenblatt will be receiving the Holberg Prize from the University of Bergen. A few weeks ago I gave a presentation in a seminar here at UiB on Greenblatt’s book The Swerve, and that piece can now be read here on the blog ‘In the Middle’. As of 7 June it had received over 9000 page views and several thousand shares. Perhaps that qualifies as viral?

When the prize was first announced a few months ago I was also interviewed for an article (in Norwegian) in the independent newspaper for the University of Bergen, På Høyden.

]]>https://laurasaetveitmiles.wordpress.com/2016/06/07/greenblatt-and-the-holberg-prize/feed/0laurasaetveitmilesNorway’s new Academy for Younger Researchers – and my 101st posthttps://laurasaetveitmiles.wordpress.com/2015/10/26/norways-new-academy-for-younger-researchers-and-my-101st-post/
https://laurasaetveitmiles.wordpress.com/2015/10/26/norways-new-academy-for-younger-researchers-and-my-101st-post/#respondMon, 26 Oct 2015 10:54:53 +0000http://laurasaetveitmiles.wordpress.com/?p=918In August 2015 I received the exciting news that I was chosen as one of the 20 founding members of the new national Norwegian Akademiet for yngere forskere, or Academy for Younger Researchers. Considering the interview was much like an MLA interview but with 5 candidates, 3 interviewers, and in a language I just started learning last year, the offer was a pleasant surprise! The Academy is an interdisciplinary meeting place and research politics platform for young academics, and we will meet up regularly in various Norwegian cities to figure out how research can help society and what we can do to make that happen.

You can read a bit about me and the Academy here, in Norwegian. Then there are two interviews of me and the other University of Bergen member, Aslak Hjeltnes: one online article by UiB publicity; and one in the independent UiB news, På Høyden. (Copy and paste these all into Google translate to get the gist, or use Chrome’s built it webpage translation.)

Our first official meeting is later this week in Oslo. I am delighted to be a part, meet other young academics from around the nation, and be challenged to think about how the Middle Ages relates to them and the public – how literature can heal the world.

]]>https://laurasaetveitmiles.wordpress.com/2015/10/26/norways-new-academy-for-younger-researchers-and-my-101st-post/feed/0laurasaetveitmilesScreen Shot 2015-10-26 at 11.56.27 AMScreen Shot 2015-10-26 at 11.54.05 AMRecent Newshttps://laurasaetveitmiles.wordpress.com/2015/08/14/recent-news/
https://laurasaetveitmiles.wordpress.com/2015/08/14/recent-news/#respondFri, 14 Aug 2015 07:59:24 +0000http://laurasaetveitmiles.wordpress.com/?p=913I have been busy this past year (doing things other than updated this page, evidently!). A few updates:

PRIZES, etc

My Speculum article, “The Origins and Development of Mary’s Book at the Annunciation” (featured below and available as a pdf) won the 2014-2015 Prize for Best Article from the Society of Medieval Feminist Scholarship. See details on smfsweb.org.

The article was also featured on the excellent website Feminae as the Article of the Month, May 2015. See details here.

NEW INITIATIVES

I founded the new UiB Literature & Religion Research Group, and now help lead as a member of the steering committee. Last semester we had several successful lectures and writing workshops, and this fall we received a large grant for a pair of innovative symposia on ‘New Directions in Religion and Literature.’ The first symposium will be on Friday 4 Sept and feature Mieke Bal as plenary speaker.

I am now a Core Partner of the large Leverhulme Trust Grant-funded “International Network on Women’s Literary Culture and the Medieval Canon” (see www.surrey.ac.uk/medievalwomen/ ). We just had our first workshop 20-24 July 2015 at the Chawton House Library in England, where I presented a lecture on “What Nuns Read… and Didn’t Read.”

I also began a 3-yr term as an Advisory Board representative for the Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship.

Wolfgang Riehle, The Secret Within: Hermits, Recluses, and Spiritual Outsiders in Medieval England, trans. Charity Scott-Stokes (Cornell University Press, 2014), in Studies in the Age of Chaucer

IN-PROGRESS PUBLICATIONS

Co-authorship, with Sonja Drimmer, of a volume of the Index of Middle English Prose: British Library Additional Manuscripts 4100-10,000 (Boydell & Brewer/ D.S. Brewer); in progress

Several commissioned articles and book chapters, to be announced…

And the monograph, of course…

INVITED TALKS

Spring was the season of invited lectures.

In February 2015, I gave a talk to the UiB Forskargruppa i mellomalderfilologi (Medieval Philology Research Group) on “The Peculiar Story of the Annunciation Scenes in the Medieval English ‘Life of Christ’ Prose Tradition.”

In March, I gave a talk to the University of Oslo Medieval Studies Research Group, “Conceiving the Word: Mary as Hermeneutic Key in Medieval Women’s Visionary Narratives.”

In May, I gave a talk to the University of Oxford Medieval English Seminar on “Christine de Pizan and Julian of Norwich in Conversation.”

CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS

I attended a lot of conferences in July, high conference season for the Anglo-American-European medievalist crowd. First I delivered a paper at the Early Book Society Meeting, Oxford, UK (2-5 July), titled “Narrating the Visionary-Devotional Reading Experience.” Then I went to Leeds to the International Medieval Congress (6-9 July) to give a paper on “Compiling St. Bridget in Late Medieval England,” an invited presentation for a panel organized by the FNRS funded project on “Late Medieval Religiousity in England,” on Middle English compilations.

Later in the month I presented a 45-minute talk at the Chawton House workshop for the Leverhulme network described above. Immediately after that I was able to go to Exeter and Dartington Hall to some of the special Syon at 600 conference celebrating the sexcentenary of the founding of the monastery Syon Abbey. It was wonderful to see so many old friends I have made over the years of my research on Syon, and make some new ones, including the last Abbess of the house, Sister Anne. I also met and spoke some Norwegian with two Birgittine nuns from the motherhouse at Vadstena, Sweden. They gave me their postcard.

I am happy to announce that my article in Speculum, the journal of the Medieval Academy of America, is now available. Download the pdf from the link below and do follow through to the whole issue at the second link. A beautiful color Annunciation even made the issue cover!

“The Origins and Development of the Virgin Mary’s Book at the Annunciation.” Speculum 89/3 (July 2014), pp. 632-669.

The article stands as a prequel to my monograph-in-progress, Interpreting the Annunciation: The Virgin Mary’s Book in Medieval England.

Thoughts and feedback welcome!

]]>https://laurasaetveitmiles.wordpress.com/2014/08/25/speculum-article-out/feed/2laurasaetveitmilesSpeculum cover with AnnunciationYour Weekly Annunciation #30: Luke 1: 26-38https://laurasaetveitmiles.wordpress.com/2013/02/15/your-weekly-annunciation-30-luke-1-26-38/
https://laurasaetveitmiles.wordpress.com/2013/02/15/your-weekly-annunciation-30-luke-1-26-38/#respondSat, 16 Feb 2013 01:37:43 +0000http://laurasaetveitmiles.wordpress.com/?p=846LENT EDITION: For Lent, I will be featuring only textual representations of the Annunciation, and no images, in the spirit of the season.

And in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God into a city of Galilee, called Nazareth, to a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. And the angel having come in, said unto her: “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.” Who having heard, was troubled at his saying, and thought with herself what manner of salutation this should be. And the angel said to her: “Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found grace with God. Behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and shalt bring forth a son; and thou shalt call his name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the most High; and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of David his father; and he shall reign in the house of Jacob for ever. And of his kingdom there shall be no end.” And Mary said to the angel: “How shall this be done, because I know not man?” And the angel answering, said to her: “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the most High shall overshadow thee. And therefore also the Holy which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. And behold thy cousin Elizabeth, she also hath conceived a son in her old age; and this is the sixth month with her that is called barren: Because no word shall be impossible with God.” And Mary said: “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to thy word.” And the angel departed from her.

]]>https://laurasaetveitmiles.wordpress.com/2013/02/08/your-weekly-annunciation-29-sinai-icon-c-1175-1200/feed/0laurasaetveitmilesSinai iconYour Weekly Annunciation #28: French Book of Hourshttps://laurasaetveitmiles.wordpress.com/2013/02/01/your-weekly-annunciation-28/
https://laurasaetveitmiles.wordpress.com/2013/02/01/your-weekly-annunciation-28/#respondSat, 02 Feb 2013 01:33:29 +0000http://laurasaetveitmiles.wordpress.com/?p=836(These have gone weekly so I can keep up a little better here.) Now for a beautiful fifteenth-century French book of hours: Yale University, Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, MS 411, f. 4r: The Annunciation (margin); Luke painting the Virgin (inset).